Anti-American Americans

I think I see another motive in the French writers who in 1914 adopted the attitude of M. Romain Rolland -- the fear that they would fall into national partiality if they admitted that their nation was in the right. It may be asserted that these writers would have warmly taken up the cause of France, if France had not been their own country. Whereas Barrès said, "I always maintain my country is right even if it is in the wrong," these strange friends of justice are not unwilling to say: "I always maintain my country is in the wrong, even if it is right." There again we see that the frenzy of impartiality, like any other frenzy, leads to injustice.

I would love to be able to regulate the content of speech. The First Amendment prevents me from doing so...

Ted Lieu (D-CA), 12 December 2018, . What planet is this guy from? Democrats, of course, want to silence any opposition; but they are usually clever enough not to say so publicly. But Ted Lieu lets us know about his lust for tyranny right out in the open. Perhaps he hasn't gotten the memo with instructions about lying and dissimulation. He really should think twice about his ability to honestly take the oath of office of a Congressman. His heart is clearly not in the requirement to "perserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States"; but then the Democrats, and most Republicans, gave up on that a long time ago.

The visas came through in 1955, when I was 15. That June, we sailed for New York aboard the Conte Biancamano. When we passed the Statue of Liberty, Anna Maria [his sister] tried to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner."

“Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work,” observed ex-slave-turned-abolitionist Frederick Douglass. To the slave owners, singing slaves would drown out their own cruelty and oppression, clothe them in a coerced choir of decency. But it wasn’t enough that the slaves had to sing, they had to sing their oppressor’s feel-good songs that are summed up in the Porgy and Bess refrain of “I’ve got plenty of nothin’, and nothin’s plenty for me.”

Yay, nothin’.

Currently, the song being demanded is the national anthem during football games. But during a warm-up game on Aug. 10, despite President Trump’s previous condemnation, several Eagles players kneeled during the anthem or raised their fists — their way of singing their own song. For them, lyrics like “land of the free” don’t accurately represent the daily reality for people of color. They love their country [?!] but want that country to recognize the suffering that occurs when it isn’t living up to its constitutional promises.

Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Hollywood Reporter, August 14, 2018 -- a millionaire (Yay, nothin’) ex-basketball player, treated like a god most of his life, talking about millionaire (Yay, nothin’) football players, who were not being asked to sing anything, just stand respectfully, for the country where they earn millions of dollars playing a game, while "the daily reality for people for color" and "the suffering that occurs" is what has been created by the welfare state of the Democrats, who deny a decent education and decent opportunities for "people of color" by attacking charter schools and vouchers and holding students hostage in dangerous and worthless public schools, whose only purpose is to provide jobs for members of teachers unions. Chew on that, .

No Border, No Wall, No U.S.A. at all!

All Cops Are Racist, You Better Face It!

Chants by self-stylled "anti-fascists" ("Antifa"), i.e. anarchists and communists, who, of course, are themselves the fascists, wearing the actual black uniforms of Mussolini's Fascisti, and masks like the KKK, August 12, 2018

Yo no creo en fronteras.

"I don't believe in borders," a slogan on T-shirt worn by Keith Ellison (D-MN), , Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee, May 1, 2018, perhaps wishing to appeal to all in the common language of Americans and his constituents, that the United States should be like other nations, with no borders (?!); Ellison was accused of beating up his girlfriend, who had photographs and filed a police report, but the Minnesota Democratic Party ruled that there was "insufficient evidence" to act on the accusation, despite the Democrats recently claiming that 35 year old assault allegations, unheard until now, with no verifiable details, were sufficient evidence for them. Now Ellison has been elected Attorney General of Minnesota, the same office Bill Clinton had in Arkansas when he reportedly raped Juanita Broderick. Verily, the voters of Minnesota have their reward.

The Trump phenomenon is pushback against what the late political scientist Samuel Huntington called the “deconstructionist” agenda, whose advocates seek to undermine America’s national identity through mass immigration and hostility to assimilation and opposition to the teaching of US history from a traditional, patriotic perspective, among other things.

Huntington argues that until the late 20th century, these elites promoted national unity, as one would expect. “Then in the 1960s and 1970s,” he writes, “they began to promote measures consciously designed to weaken America’s cultural and creedal identity and to strengthen racial, ethnic, cultural, and other subnational identities. These efforts by a nation’s leaders to deconstruct the nation they governed were, quite possibly, without precedent in human history.”

Rich Lowery, "Trump Week One: The Return of the Nation-State," The New York Post, January 27, 2017, p.25

The United States has reached the extraordinary position where it has nurtured an ideology within itself, formulated and taught at schools and universities, that is not only hostile and disparaging to the majority race of the citizens ("white"), the majority religion (Christianity), and those economically successful minority groups (Jews, Koreans, people from India, etc.), but is equally and actively hostile and adverse to the principles of free speech, free association, free enterprise, and an open, participatory Republic upon which the nation was built.

Joseph Schumpeter thought that capitalism could be destroyed by many of the people who benefited the most from it. But it is worse than that. Elite culture not only despises capitalism, it celebrates impoverished dictatorships like Cuba, or even, as with Noam Chomsky [], Eastern Europe under Soviet rule. These preferences were reflected in the complacency, or the active encouragement, for the Obama Administration to rule by administrative decree and to arbitrarily suspend, enforce, or rewrite existing law to its preferences. The suppression of speech at American universities and the suspension of ordinary standards of due process and the rule of law demonstrate a preference for Stalinism that is contradicted by nothing otherwise expressed by elite intellectuals and "educators."

It is difficult to imagine a previous country whose own elites turned against it, and against most of its citizens, so thoroughly. Roman history was often written by historians who preferred the Republic to the Empire (Livy or Tacitus) or who were alarmed at disasters that had occurred (Ammianus Marcellinus); but the Roman elite never conceived a hatred of themselves. Indeed, the Roman state survived the disasters of the 4th and 5th centuries largely because of the confidence of the Romans in the value of their own civilization and their own religion.

The same cannot be said for America, which has raised and holds a deadly viper to her own breast; and an unprecedented event may occur, where a great nation is precipitated into eclipse through the self-hatred of its own privileged, educated ruling class -- however baseless, absurd, or perverse that self-hatred actually was, and however clueless and repellent the folly of that elite.

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All I want for Christmas is white genocide... To clarify: when the whites were massacre[d] during the Haitian revolution, that was a good thing indeed.

Meanwhile, in the echo chamber of late-night TV -- increasingly populated with hosts such as Samantha Bee [] and John Oliver, who smugly lecture an unseen, applauding audience of fellow liberals -- reaction was as vehement.

"It's pretty clear who ruined America -- white people," Bee said in her post-election monologue. Fairly trembling with rage, she continued, "the Caucasian nation showed up in droves to vote for Trump, so I don't want to hear a goddamn word about black voter turnout. How many times do we expect black people to build our country for us?...Holy shit."

Maureen Callahan, "The fault in Hollywood's loudmouth lefty stars," New York Post, Sunday, November 13, 2016, p.11, after the November 8th election of Donald Trump as President. -- Bee is supposed to be a comedian? This racist self-hatred, nauseating self-righteousness, and clueless politics is supposed to be funny? Other comedians pulling this at live performances have now been booed.

The digital media company BuzzFeed faced backlash this week after posting a piece titled “37 Things White People Need To Stop Ruining In 2018.”

BuzzFeed made online waves in December 2016 when one of its popular “listicle” pieces mocked the “plague” of “white people” populating the planet. Patrice Peck, the website’s multicultural beauty writer, added her own contribution to race-based click-bait on Thursday.

According to the article, some of the things white people are responsible for ruining in 2017:

The United States of America
The National Anthem
The Oscars
The Grammy Awards

Ms. Peck’s piece generated nearly 730,000 views for BuzzFeed in less than 24 hours, but not without backlash.

“Even if you subscribe to the asymmetric view of racism (ie, only some tribes can be racist, others can’t), it should not be hard to see why this sort of article is bad for America,” tweeted National Review Online contributor Dan McLaughlin.

Douglas Ernst, The Washington Times, December 28, 2017; the now totally conventional and automatic racism of the Left.

Harry Reid [] has done as much as anyone to pave the way for Donald Trump’s victory by promoting Washington dysfunction, so it’s no surprise that he has reacted to the election result by proving the point one more time.

The soon-to-be-former Democratic Senate leader issued a statement Friday that showed his contempt for anyone who voted for Mr. Trump. “I have personally been on the ballot in Nevada for 26 elections and I have never seen anything like the reaction to the election completed last Tuesday. The election of Donald Trump has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America,” he said.

"Harry Reid and the Horse He Rode In On," The Wall Street Journal, November 14, 2016, A16. Does Harry Reid really believe this stuff, or is it just another one of the lies he cherishes to ingratiate himself with the Left? He certainly doesn't seem to care that he smears and slanders "innocent, law-abiding Americans" all across the country. Verily, he has his reward. But meanwhile, we should note that this is apparently an example of the "civility" about which the Democrats are always lecturing everyone else. Presumably the anti-Trump riots that followed the 2016 election are also representative of Democrat "civility," complete with the burning of the American flag, signs that say, "America Was Never Great," and protesters marching behind Mexican flags -- to show, I guess, how much they believe in America. Cute.

Of course, they don't believe in America; and now we get some professors who've decided that civility is actually part of "white supremacy." Good manners deflect from the racism and oppression that dominates American society. Practiced by whites, civility is condescension and the invalidation of rage about racism. Practiced by minorities (except, of course, Jews or Asians), civility is submissive and defers to, rather than confronts, the unwillingness of whites to address racism, oppression, privilege, capitalism, etc.

"America is the land of opportunity."

"Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work
hard enough."

"Affirmative action is racist."

Phrases deemed "microaggressions" by the University of California, "Tool: Recognizing Microaggressions and the Messages They Send" (a webpage now withdrawn); these are, of course, macroaggressions against, not just free speech, but any free political thought or expression -- there was a time when the Left thought it could get away with denying that "political correctness," i.e. political thought crimes, existed. Now it is in print as University policy. It is possible that its authors, with their heads far up their posteriors, did not even realize how vicious it would look.

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing "God Bless America." No, no, no; not God bless America! God damn America! It's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating its citizens as less than human!

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright [boldface added] -- as long as George W. Bush was President, we kept hearing charges, even from Members of Congress, that the government provided drugs and created drug dependency to destroy black neighborhoods; but as soon as Barack Obama became President, these charges evaporated, nothing more was heard about them, and nothing was done about what must have been thousands of federal agent drug pushers.

America needs to follow the policies it has introduced in Germany. We have to go through a certain de-Nazification process.

George Soros, Davos Conference, 2007

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Senator Barack Obama, March 18, 2008 [boldface added],

...for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.

Michelle Obama, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Monday, February 18, 2008,

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country...

Michelle Obama, Madison, Wisconsin, Monday, February 18, 2008,

[T]here's nothing patriotic about hating your government or pretending you can hate your government but love your country.

First of all, let me just say that any group that says "I’m young, I’m democratic, and I’m a socialist" is alright with me.

Bertha Lewis, President of ACORN, speaking at the Winter Conference of the Young Democratic Socialists on March 25, 2010

We are not part of the United States simply because the United States says so.... Rather than taking over the reins of power of the United States, we're talking about abolishing those reins altogether.... United States, out of your classrooms!.... United States, out of North America! And most important, United States, out of mind!

There are lessons we have not yet learned. I feel Karen would share my concerns that underlying forces of greed and hate persevere. American imperialism, corporate avarice, abuses of our power abroad and our historical support of corrupt dictators like Hosni Mubarak have created an abhorrence of us that, unfortunately, persists. We need to recognize how the rest of the world sees us, and figure out how to change that. Until we do that, more Osama bin Ladens will arise, and more innocent people like my sister will die.

Robert Klitzman, M.D., "My Sister, My Grief," New York Times, 3 May 2011, writing after the death of Osama ben Laden about his sister Karen, who was killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11, with "blame American first" ideology

At the time when they were the darlings of the international Left, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua were actively aided, facilitated, and protected by Democratic Members of the United States Congress. The Cold War was still going on, and the Soviet Union actively bankrolled the tendrils of international Communism, including Cuba, the American Communist Party, and the Sandinistas. Thus, these Democrats were engaged in treason, not just against the United States, but against civilization and humanity as well. Some of them are still in Congress. And their goals and loyalties have not changed. Indeed, they have become increasingly successful at getting their way -- which is still no less than to institute a socialist and totalitarian, i.e. communist, police state.

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University of Hawaii Professor [of Hawaiian Studies] Haunani-Kay Trask [] counseled her students, "We need to think very, very clearly about who the enemy is. The enemy is the United States of America and everyone who supports it."

Ariana Grande [], a native-born & rich child actor, at Los Angeles doughnut shop, while licking and replacing displayed doughnuts, July 4, 2015 -- I don't know yet if Grande has changed her tune since a suicide bomber, Salman Ramadan Abedi, killed 22 people and injured more than 800 at her concert in Manchester, England, on 22 May 2017. The bomber avoided security by waiting until the concert ended and people were streaming out of the venue in dense crowds. Certainly Grande doesn't "hate" Muslims the way she said she hated "Americans" in 2015.

A friend last weekend said he thought the story about the University of New Hampshire's website publishing a bias-free language guide, which declared that use of the word "American" is "problematic," was a hoax. Of course, it was real.

A few moments ago, the body was treated to a report from the senator from Iowa [Tom Harkin ] about his recent trip to Cuba. Sounded like he had a wonderful trip visiting, what he described as, a real paradise. He bragged about a number of things that he learned on his trip to Cuba that I'd like to address briefly. He bragged about their health care system, medical school is free, doctors are free, clinics are free, their infant mortality rate may be even lower than ours. I wonder if the senator, however, was informed, number one, that the infant mortality rate of Cuba is completely calculated on figures provided by the Cuban government. And, by the way, totalitarian communist regimes don't have the best history of accurately reporting things. I wonder if he was informed that before Castro, Cuba, by the way, was 13th in the whole world in infant mortality. I wonder if the government officials who hosted him informed him that in Cuba there are instances reported, including by defectors, that if a child only lives a few hours after birth, they're not counted as a person who ever lived and therefore don't count against the mortality rate.

Senator Marco Rubio, speech on the Senate floor, February 24, 2014,

Thus are assaults on patriotism failures of character. They are made by privileged people who enjoy the full benefits offered by the country they deride and detest, but they lack the basic decency to pay it the allegiance and respect that honor demands. But honor, of course, is also an object of their derision...

In the long and deadly battle against those who hate Western ideals, and hate America in particular, we must be powerfully armed, morally as well as materially. To sustain us through the worst times we need courage and unity, and these must rest on a justified and informed patriotism.

American culture often seems anti-intellectual in great measure because Americans have recognized that modern intellectuals have become anti-American -- hostile in fact to the intellectuals, such as Locke, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, etc., whose ideas founded the Republic. A Howard Zinn [] prefers those, like Marx, whose principles led to the murder, enslavement, and impoverishment of millions in the 20th century, while dismissing the freedom and success of America, unique in history, as oppressive to "The People."

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A university conveys as much through its policies as it does in classrooms, and to dissuade students from considering military service could mean only one of several things: "Democracy needs no defenders," or "This country is not worth defending," or "Let some loser do the fighting for you..."

No boots on the ground? No military strategy? Trust your enemies and diss your allies? Spokespersons for the president could have been lip-synced by denizens of his alma mater [i.e. Harvard]. That Mr. Obama has no use for the other side of the aisle is the logical extension of a university that has purged all but a handful of conservatives from its faculty -- and has done so in the name of achieving greater diversity.

When the Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, Nicholas Dirks [], commemorated the anniversary of the "Free Speech Movement" by saying that free speech, however important, must be balanced by "civility," he was, of course, saying that anyone who disagrees with leftist pieties better shut up. When he said, "[W]e can only exercise our right to free speech insofar as we feel safe and respected in doing so," he neglected the fact that the people on his campus who feel the least "safe and respected" would be conservatives, Republicans, libertarians, Christians, and often also Jews. The modern university, which has invented and relentlessly promoted and enforced "speech codes" that blatantly violate the First Amendment, which public schools, at least, are required to observe, obviously has no commitment whatsoever to free speech. This is commensurate with the practice of leftist academics, whose scholarship is uniformly illiberal, intolerant, anti-capitalist, and anti-American, to silence and purge dissent from academic departments, and to sanction students who voice disagreement. In other words, they are Stalinists. Their idea of "diversity" and "civility" is when we hear from black and Hispanic communists as well as white communists (like Bettina Aptheker [], who spoke at the Berkeley anniversary rally). They have achieved their greatest success, now, just as their ideas are the most obviously intellectually, morally, and practically bankrupt (despite the brief encouragement derived from Thomas Piketty []). And as their behavior has served to discredit the value of the humanities and of a liberal education, they are faced with a generation of students who are aware that the debt they take on to go to college, and the insults and outrages that they must endure from leftist faculty and politically correct administrations, are not compensated for by the increasing lack of career opportunities, or even employment, for college graduates. College is becoming a waste, and the Left has made it that way, even as they have already gone far to ruin all the rest of American education.

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On Tuesday [October 9, 2018] Mrs. [Hillary] Clinton told CNN: "You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about." You cannot be civil. Behold the Trump sun and the Clinton moon in a moment of political eclipse.

Daniel Henninger, "You Cannot Be Civil," The Wall Street Journal, October 11, 2018, A15; well, since the Democrats want to destroy what America stands for and what most Americans care about, I am happy to find that I no longer need to be civil about it. But I doubt that Hillary Clinton thinks that Republicans or anyone else have a right to do what she does. The Left never remembers the basic adage of the playground, that "turnabout is fair play." They always expect exemptions for themselves. So I imagine she will soon go back to lecturing Republcians about civility, and that they are the ones who don't have it.

I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America... He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.

The pathology of Western intellectuals has committed them to an adversarial relationship with the culture -- free markets and individual rights -- that has produced the greatest alleviation of suffering; the greatest liberation from want, ignorance, and superstition; and the greatest increase of bounty and opportunity in the history of all human life.

This pathology allows Western intellectuals to step around the Everest of bodies of the victims of Communism without a tear, a scruple, a regret, an act of contrition, or a reevaluation of self, soul, and mind.

American flags were removed from three Arlington [New York] Fire District trucks Tuesday, sparking heated discussion on social media and disappointment from union members.

[Chief Tory] Gallante was directed by the board to remove the flags from the backs of the trucks during Monday's meeting. He declined to comment on specifics of why the decision was made but said he is “very disappointed with their direction.”

This form of protest later spread to some college and even high school football players. Of course, self-righteous and malicious ideology is what is now taught in the schools and through the "progressive" politics that dominates universities and the media. Anti-Americanism is the prevailing conviction among educated and radicalized elites, including the Ruling Class of government, bureaucracy, and their brain trusts. One is tempted to say that these people will not be happy until Americans, particularly white Americans and Christians, are being killed by the enemies of America and of civilization. Islamic Terrorism promises the best opportunity for that, and the Obama Adminstration countenancing nuclear weapons in Iran offers the most direct hope that Jews and Americans can be annihilated.

America, the most successful nation in history, thus may also become the first to simply and abruptly commit suicide. Indeed, the very definition of a "failed state" may be one that no longer commands the loyalty of its citizens, and that may be actively despised by them, however absurd, fallacious, incoherent, and dishonest their reasons.

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The problem for Mr. Obama is that Ms. [Meryl] Streep [] managed to step on many of the themes the president might be expected to hit in his last big presidential speech Tuesday [January 10, 2017], right down to a snarky reference to foreign birth certificates. Here are some of the lines Ms. Streep delivered, followed by a short interpretation of what she really means:

“All of us in this room really belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now.” Translation: You may think of us as rich and powerful and good-looking, but we are really just victims who live in fear.

“When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.” Translation: In case you haven’t heard, Donald Trump is a lout.

“We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call him on the carpet for every outrage.” Translation: The big problem today is that journalists aren’t willing to criticize Mr. Trump.

“You’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.” Translation: This is a warning for all you deplorable people clinging to guns and “Monday Night Football.”

“Ryan Gosling, like all of the nicest people, is Canadian.” Translation: Under President Trump, the actor who just won a Golden Globe for “La La Land” lives in fear his home will be raided by the INS and he will be deported back to Ontario.

William McGurn, "Meryl Streep Upstages Obama," The Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2017; McGurn does not emphasize the implications that (1) for the "most vilified," she's forgotten the "basket of deplorables" vilified by Hillary Clinton and her supporters (referenced by McGurn himself), (2) somehow the Obama Adminisration has not been bullying people, although many of its enforcement and regulatory agencies have indeed been doing so, (3) the Obama Administration and its frequently dictatorial actions do not need to held "to account" by the press, which has not been doing so, and (4) none of the "nicest people" seem to be actual Americans. Obviously, if Steep wants to associate with the "nicest people," Americans need not apply. Which is worse, that she understands what she's saying, or that she doesn't?

No Trump, No Wall, No U.S.A. at all!

Chant by self-stylled "anti-fascists" ("Antifa"), 2017

Fuck your border,Fuck your Wall,We will make your system fall!

Chant during "immigration" protests, 29 June 2018, in line with the current proposal of "democratic socialists" (i.e. communists) to abolish immigration enfrocement. The "system" is certainly capitalism and American sovereinty, as in the previous chant.

Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!" You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s going to say, "That guy that disrespects our flag, he’s fired." And that owner, they don’t know it [but] they’ll be the most popular person in this country.

President Donald Trump, September 22, 2017, about players who do not stand for the National Anthem -- I can just hear George C. Scott (as Geroge Patton) saying it.

The rot of anti-Americanism has gone far indeed when football players refuse to stand for the Star Spangled Banner. Why don't they just go ahead and burn the flag, while they're at it [see above]? Show us how you really feel. That's protected by the First Amendment too, you know.

On Sunday, September 24, 2017, the entire Pittsburg Steelers football team remained in the locker room during the national anthem, evidently with the blessing of the coach and the owner of the team -- except for one player, who was, of course, a veteran (Alejandro Villanueva). Meanwhile, Americans are fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria -- and sometimes dying, for us, and for the flag -- while rich athletes "protest" all the racism that, what, pays them millions of dollars a year? These are confused, clueless, and vicious people, corrupted by enemies of the American people.

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Our country is an embarrassment in the world... Well, because it's uncomfortable and there has to be an uncomfortable element in the discourse for anything to change. Whether it's the LGBT movement or women's suffrage, it doesn't matter. People have to be made to feel uncomfortable, and especially white people, because we're comfortable. We still have no clue of what being born white means...

Gregg Popovich [], San Antonio Spurs, Head Coach, Sep 25, 2017

People don't go to sporting events to endure political demonstrations from players or listen to racist and anti-American rants from self-hating coaches. The pleasure and entertainment of sports is the opposite of the "uncomfortable element" that the Left wants to inject into everything, on the totalitarian Marxist principle that everything is political. Get this son of a bitch off the basketball court! Cuba beckons!

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The US Army has condemned the actions of a West Point grad and current infantry officer who has been posting pro-communism messages on social media as a show of support for Colin Kaepernick.

In one of his most recent posts, Second Lt. Spenser Rapone [] can be seen wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt under his military uniform.

In another, he holds up a fist and points his cap toward the camera — showing the words “Communism will win” scrawled on the inside.

"Army officials condemn West Point grad for pro-Kaepernick tweets," The New York Post, by Chris Perez, September 26, 2017, 8:44pm

You should make a shirt that says, "being white is terrorism"... There are many Americans protesting US govt aggression towards Iran... Look, I only say I hate America like 3 times a day... I mean yeah I do [hate America] it's literally the worst thing to happen on the planet. We invented capitalism the downfall of the environment.

ACLU, you protect Hitler, too...
Blood on your hands...
The revolution will not uphold the Constitution...
Liberalism is white supremacy.

Chants and signs of Black Lives Matter students who rushed the stage and shouted down Claire Gastañaga, of the American Civil Liberties Union, attempting to speak about Free Speech, at the College of William & Mary, September 17, 2017 -- members of the "revolution" obviously will not be able to take public office by swearing to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." But some supporters are already in public office.

For every one that doeth evil hateth the light,neither cometh to the light,lest his deeds should be reproved.

John 3:20

There is a curious feature about American politics. A substantial body of political opinion, evident in the media, academia, and popular culture, simply despises America -- its history, its principles, and its institutions -- and sees no value in the Great Republic unless it profoundly changes its character and assumes a form quite different from that of the past. In 2008, examples of this attitude emerged in relation to the political campaign of Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama. None of them was more blunt and striking than the statement of the pastor, for 20 years, of Obama's own church. In a sermon that was taped and available for sale at the church, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright could be seen simply saying, multiple times, "Not God bless America! God damn America!" The aftermath of this becoming public was instructive in its own right. Defenders of Wright protested that he didn't really mean it that way, that the quote was taken out of context (though anyone can watch the unedited sermon). Or, of course, anyone complaining about Wright was simply a racist.

Senator Obama first expressed concern, as though these kinds of statements from Wright were not familiar to him, and then, as Wright unapologetically defended himself in television appearances, Obama denounced him and resigned from his church. However, it was undeniable that Obama's political career had begun associating with Wright and many others of similarly radical and anti-American stripe in the Chicago area. Also, as in this case, it is characteristic of much Anti-Americanism in politics that, while it is freely expressed in private or partisan venues, it shuns the full light of public exposure and, when thus exposed, dissimulates, denies, or qualifies extreme statements. When Senator Obama's wife, Michelle, made statements asserting that she had never before been proud of her country, reponses that were attempts at misdirection were also common. Although Michelle was campaigning for Barack and making political statements, the claim was (from Barack himself) that she was above politics and properly immune from criticism. Thus, in both controversies, the initial response was to avoid the substance of the matter and to claim that the story itself was dishonest or inappropriate.

But why should Americans be anti-American? The problem is ideological. Mexicans are proud of Mexico just because it is Mexico -- regardless of crime, poverty, corruption, tyranny, etc. Mexicans or Mexican-Americans wave Mexican flags at sporting events or in political demonstrations -- often booing teams representing the United States or the playing of The Star Spangled Banner. Many Americans, however, are squeamish about even flying, let alone waving, the American flag -- patriotism, as Dr. Johnson said, and we are often told, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. The difference between Mexico and the United States is that Mexican identity has a geographical, cultural, and historical foundation, while the United States was founded entirely on the basis of certain principles and ideals, with a history believed to embody those things. The principles and ideals were the accomplishment of the Enlightenment, which especially in political terms, as recognized and advocated by Voltaire to his French readers, went back to John Locke and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 -- other Enlightenment tendencies, as with Jean Jacques Rouseau, involved other ideals more in tune with later collectivism, statism, and totaliarianism.

Countries thatHate America the Most

1

Pakistan

79%

2

Palestine

77%

3

Algeria

67%

4

Lebanon

64%

5

Egypt

62%

6

Iran

61%

7

Iraq

60%

8

Yemen

59%

9

Greece

57%

10

Serbia

57%

In the 19th century the priniciples of Locke and the American Revolution would become Classical Liberalism -- for limited, secular government, private property, and the dignity and liberty of the individual. Part of the problem, then, with the founding of America was the degree to which people would judge the country by its success, in their estimation, in living up to its ideals. All the worse if popular political ideals were to change, while American institutions remained largely those of Classical Liberal form. In a very significant way this is what happened. Limited government and individualism lost favor by the beginning of the 20th century. What appeared to be progressive ideology in the 20th century was largely for absolutist, collectivist, and statist government, following the ideology of people like Hegel, who influenced the 19th century development of European governments and politics. This was bad enough, and the success of America certainly could not be favorably judged in terms of ideals alien to the spirit of her founding and development; but there would be something worse. Even the successes of America could be judged as inadequate in terms of her own ideals, with the bitter irony of a kind of Catch 22.

When it comes to the nature of ideals of the American Revolution, however, part of the problem is very old. We find Greek philosophy in origin and development associated with commercial culture and democracy. The ultimate exemplar of this was the city of Athens, which was wealthy from trade, the principal democracy in the Ancient World, and a wellspring of much of what we think of as Classical Greek civilization, from the theater, to history, architecture, art, and philosophy. Nevertheless, the attitude of probably the greatest philosopher produced by Athens, Plato, was hostile to almost all the cultural, economical, and political characteristics of the place. He didn't like democracy, didn't like commercial culture, didn't like the foreign influences and residents who flowed through the city, and, expressed in a memorable addendum to the Republic, didn't even like the unfettered artistic expression that so immortalized the place -- an artistic expression of which his own vivid writings were a part. Instead, Plato admired Sparta, a place without literature, art, history, or philosophy, a place that would have vanished from human memory if Athenians had not begun writing about it. In a very real sense, Anti-Americanism is part of this ancient conflict between Athens and Sparta; but of course there must be reasons for that conflict, Plato's reasons, in the first place. Indeed. Even now, it is often instructive to see Anti-American attitudes expressed through criticisms of Athens.

Both Athens and America are critized over slavery -- as we see referenced by Barack Obama above as "this nation's original sin." Criticism of Athens about slavery is a little silly, since no ancient state ever abolished slavery. A condemnation of Athens would need to be of the form, "somehow, they should have known better." America is more vulnerable, since the ideal of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal" seems to be immediately contradicted by the continuation of slavery. But we may well ask how, by introducing a contrary principle, slavery was America's sin. Was slavery invented in America? No. Slavery had always existed everywhere. The slave trade in West Africa had not even been started by Europeans, but by Arabs. Instead of slaves being exported north across the Sahara, as they had been for centuries, Europeans bought them from the south and exported them across the Atlantic.

Be it known to you, that the Traffic in Slaves is a matter on which all Sects and Nations have agreed from the time of the sons of Adam, on whom be the Peace of God, up to this day -- and we are not aware of its being prohibited by the Laws of any Sect, and no one need ask this question [i.e. whether the trade in slaves be lawful], the same being manifest to both high and low and requires no more demonstration than the light of day.

Was slavery widely recognized as a wrong at the time of the American revolution? No. As we see in the statement of the Sultan of Morocco in 1842, it had not been prohibited by the "Laws of any Sect." Slavery was legal under Roman Law, Islamic Law, and, in general, in the Bible. The idea that slavery was wrong originated in the Enlightenment ideology of the American Revolution itself, with about half of the American colonies abolishing slavery during that era, and the Constitution anticipated the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 -- a delay singled out, apparently as a reproach, by Barack Obama. Support for slavery, of course, continued, not the least among African rulers who sold slaves, but also among slave owners who mostly had history, religion, custom, and law on their side. Did America just never do anything about slavery as time went on? No. The controversy, argued with fury and recrimination, dominated the early years of American politics, resulting in a terrible Civil War in which more than 600,000 Americans died -- in contrast to the sum of about 400,000 African slaves that had been imported into the 13 American colonies in the first place.

The readiness to condemn America even for its accomplishments, as though the principles of the Declaration of Independence were immediately discredited just because they were new and faced resistance, is mainly ideological in origin. The real problem does not come with the fulfillment of the ideals, but with what the ideals were in the first place. A "somehow, they should have known better" view of American history that is fully ahistorical and anachronistic is not a genuine independent conviction but is simply used in the service of ideals that are alien and hostile to the original form of the American project. As a rhetorical device, it condemns America both for things that it excuses in others and for failing to live up to ideals that are not respected anyway. Part of this I have discussed elsewhere as the problem in Ethics of Moralistic Relativism. There I quote Paul Hollander in The Survival of the Adversary Culture:

Paul Craig Roberts characterizes the resulting attitudes [of Western and American intellectuals] as a "fusion of moral scepticism with the demand for moral perfection..." He also points out that the high, moralistic demands on the part of intellectuals are almost invariably directed at their own society, rarely at those opposed to it.... In other words, the intellectuals discussed alternate between moral absolutism and moral relativism. [The Survival of the Adversary Culture, Transaction Publishers, 1991, p. 156]

It is certainly a painful irony when people who otherwise deny the objective or binding existence of moral principles, often with a nihilistic nod to Friedrich Nietzsche, nevertheless rise in furious moral indignation at the shortcomings of American history and government. We may suspect, however, that this sort of incoherence and confusion, deliberately or not, masks something else. In the background there may actually be a rather complete system of morality and ideology that is either deliberately concealed or is naively assumed to be so self-evident that, obvious to all, it need not be discussed. It often seems to be a matter of both. Thus, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and Lillian Hellman said, "The Motherland has been attacked!" this was not because she believed in a Nietzschean transvaluation of all values, but because she was a Communist. Yet much of the effort of the Communist Party in the United States in the 40's, 50's, and later was spent on denying that Communists were Communists, or that the Party was, in fact, a paid and controlled agent of the Soviet Union. Thus, while in Marxist ideology what one is -- a class enemy -- counts for more than what one believes, the approach of the Party was to argue that Communists were being attacked simply for what they believed, not for what they were (Communists) and what they were doing (spying and subversion). Thus, America could be faulted for violating its own individualistic principles, when those principles were not honored by the Communists anyway, and when the real complaint was criminal and treasonous activities, not speech (when people like Hellman, to confuse and dissimulate, never openly confessed what they believed anyway).

This whole strategy continues in American politics today, where the "race, class, gender" development of Marxist ideology, as "post-modernism" or "critical theory," dominates American academics and intellectuals, where political correctness, ideological uniformity, and unconstitutional "speech codes" stifle or penalize dissent in education, and where any exposure, response, or complaint about any of this is immediately demonized as fascist, racist, or "classist" attacks on academic freedom or freedom of speech -- again from people who, in the appropriate private, protected, and friendly contexts, reject freedom of speech, and whose acolytes faithfully protest, intimidate, threaten, or physically assault opposition speech on campuses (free of sanction by compliant or sympathetic administrations).

If we look at anti-Americanism from its modern Marxist perspective and at the opposition to Athens by someone like Plato, they end up with something very significant in common: the desire on the part of people who are essentially thinkers, talkers, and plotters to control other people. The essential problem of politics for Plato is just that the wrong people are in charge. It should be, well, people like Plato -- the knowers, the wise, the philosophers. The intellectuals, as the wise and the good, want to rule and they know that they will do a better job, regardless of the desires of the ignorant masses. This is often called "democracy"; but we should not be surprised to learn that supposed democratic "reforms," like "campaign finance reform," only serve to protect established politicians and political parties, often criminally sanction grass roots efforts by ordinary citizens, who are bewildered or uninformed about the complexity of election laws, and are then aided and abetted by a press and media comfortably dominated by ideological friends. The alternative media, like popular Conservative talk radio, are then attacked as illegitimate or unfair. Rush Limbaugh, but not the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, gets called "the most dangerous man in America."

Yet it is the likes of Wright who, by a constant pressure through education, opinion, and entertainment, still give the Soviet Union a chance to win the Cold War and turn America into a Soviet-style state. Limbaugh, as a Conservative, merely fights to maintain traditional American cultural values and the traditional principles of American government. As a Conservative, he is bound to be embarrassed when traditional cultural values are simply undermined by freedom (as with pornography and sexual mores), but his support of that freedom on the political side, as when he parts ways with Culture Warriors seeking censorship, puts him at odds, not with Gay Pride parades, but with people on the Left who, as noted, are aiming and active in attacking and suppressing free speech.

The essence of anti-American politics may perhaps be found with demonstrators at the University of California at Berkeley not long ago. They were literally burning books while carrying signs that said, "fight Fascist censorship." It is a tribute to their own poor education that they could stage a book burning without realizing what this would look like, and what it would remind people of with any knowledge of history. But they need not have worried. No one put the images on the evening news, and one had to go to the alternative media to know that it had happened at all.

In great measure, however, it is too late. Anti-American principles have already infected government at all levels. The New Deal was a mortal blow to the Constitution, and most Americans are not even aware why. Most Republicans would not even agree with this -- ever since Dwight Eisenhower announced that his Administration would not challenge the basic changes effected by Franklin Roosevelt. While the Goldwater wing of the party did seem ready to challenge them, the ultimate Goldwater President, Ronald Reagan, nevertheless did not, and continued to praise Roosevelt, as have subsequent Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich. Republican Presidents after Reagan, i.e. the Bushes, have retreated further to the fatally compromising Eisenhower position. By their own definitions, however, the Founders of this Nation, with the possible exception of Alexander Hamilton, would all regard the present, New Deal-modified Federal Government as an active system of tyranny. In American political culture, the conventional wisdom is that only the most extreme lunatic fringe crackpot would assert any such thing; and Democrat leaders, like Bill Clinton, are pleased to claim the identity of the present form of government with all that has ever been good about the United States. Thus, in a famous statement, Clinton asserted that, "[T]here's nothing patriotic about hating your government or pretending you can hate your government but love your country."

But is hating a government that has burst all Constitutional boundaries and has extended its cold probing hand even into details about how much water a toilet can flush the same as being anti-American and hating the country? It is hard to know if Clinton himself even believes this. There is a fringe on the Right that has considered the country ruined ever since Abraham Lincoln, if not earlier (i.e. since the Constitution itself, which the Anti-Federalists suspected of all the evils that have in fact transpired). Yet in one respect the choice is clear. The Socialist temptation continues, and the overwhelming bulk of anti-American sentiment in academia and elsewhere is strongly fueled and founded in Marxism, as much or more so as even in the days of the Soviet Union. Anti-Americanism is anti-Capitalism in all opinion that regards itself as "progressive." That is why the New Deal continues to be so harmful, since it embodies the judgment that free markets fail and government knows best. Instead, as the Founders knew well, government largess handed out for political favor is the essence of corruption. This has now made the entire Federal Government one vast mechanism of rent seeking and vote buying. As "reforms" have attempted to make the government more democratic, all the classic evils of democracy, with demagogues promising free goods (such as the looming, and in fact continuing, socialization of medicine), again as well understood by the Founders, have emerged triumphant. It may just be too late. The Fabian anti-American Americans are getting their way on a broad front, hoping to transform the United States into France, if not another Soviet Union.

The passive protests against the National Anthem referenced in the epigraph above began with a player named Colin Kaepernick. After the presidential election of 2016, Kaepernick admitted that he hadn't even voted, asserting that voting didn't make any difference in the evils of the United States. What alternative political system Kaepernick might prefer was revealed when, after the death of Fidel Castro, he began wearing shirts featuring Castro's image. Asked about this, Kaepernick praised Castro and repeated the usual bogus lefist talking-points about Cuba's great accomplishments in education and health care. He added that Cuba spends more on education than on prisons, while the United States does the opposite. When reminded of Castro's crimes and of the health of Cuban prisons, full of political dissidents, some of whom President Obama expected to be freed as part of his deal to reopen diplomatic relations with Cuba, Kaepernick resorted to the old "moral equivalence" arguments familiar from the Cold War, that any crimes Castro may have commited are matched by those commited by America. However, if the crimes of Castro and America really are equivalent, then why does this fellow love Castro and hate America? Shouldn't he hate both?

Of course, the millionaire athlete Kaepernick is a clueless idiot, but praise for Castro was common on the the Left, often just in terms that Castro resisted American "imperialism," or even with preposterous assertions of Castro's care for the poor and oppressed, for which, of course, he had no concern whatsoever, since he destroyed Cuba's previously successful economy and condemned Cubans to decades of poverty, not to mention to totalitarian dicatatorship in a police state. Equally curious were tributes to Castro, as from Barack Obama himself, that tried to maintain a neutral tone which highlighted things like how Castro had "altered the course of individual lives" and which emphasized the "enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him." Unfortunately, the people formulating such tributes (Obama, in this case) don't seem to have noticed that they had crafted things that could have been said as well about Adolf Hitler, who probably had an "impact" and "altered the course of individual lives" of far more people than Castro did. With both of them the unanswered question would be the nature of their influence and impact.

Protests against the election of Donald Trump in 2016, whose campaign slogan was "Make America Great Again," often featured signs saying "America Was Never Great," along with actual burning of the American flag. The protesters thus revealed that their complaint was not so much against Trump as it was against the United States of America. The protesters, who often also became rioters, also carried signs that we previously saw at the "Occupy Wall Street" events, saying, "This is what democracy looks like." However, in the election, American democracy had already spoken; and what a lot of the protesters and rioters seemed to think was that their actions could start a violent revolution to overthrow the government and install the kind of dictatorship that they favor, i.e. like their ideal, Fidel Castro. Protests about police shootings had previously featured signs calling for violent revolution. The press was careful not to allow viewers to see these kinds of things too clearly.

Viewers, however, had gotten the message; and viewers had also gotten the message that, when Trump was smeared as a racist bigot, just for complaining about illegal aliens and terrorist infiltrators among Middle Eastern refugees and immigrants, the people engaging in the smear were themselves anti-American racist bigots, whose hatred for America, white people, Christians, and Jews was usually palpable. The Hillary Clinton campaign featured cute signs saying "Love Trumps Hate," but it could not conceal the hatred among her supporters, especially in the academic brain trust at American universities, where free speech is now regarded as an evil, and students are taught that the United States is the worst regime that has ever existed. Hampshire College in Massachusetts lowered its American flag to half-staff after the election. The flag was then taking down and burned just before Veteran's Day. The President of the College then decided not to fly the flag at all, provoking protests from actual veterans. Meanwhile, nearby Amherst, Massachusetts, flies the United Nations flag rather than the American. People know what this means.

The Left and the leftist press and academics of America still don't seem to realize that their anti-Americanism and their own racial and religious bigotry helped Donald Trump get elected. And by continuing to pour in on after the election, they stand a good chance of giving him a positive approval rating before he even becomes President -- someone who, like Hillary, had historical levels of disapproval before the election. But protesters who protest a fair election and then burn the flag hand him priceless favorable publicity. People know what that means. With any luck, 2016 will turn out to be the Armageddon of the anti-American Left, although the rot had already gone very deep indeed. The National Football League has lost considerable viewership this year, and observers wonder how much of that is due to the League's tolerance of players who disrespect the National Anthem and the Flag.